Gold Box

The SSI Gold Box games were a fondly remembered series of computer RPGs produced by SSI, based on the first edition Dungeons & Dragons license. They were not the first D&D licensed games, but they were the first to appear in the 16 bit era, when home computers got sophisticated enough to implement substantial chunks of the game system. Their name comes from the distinctive gold-colored cardboard box that most of them came in.

The games were based on variations of the same engine and took place in a first person dungeon/city (with some games having an overworld map). Battles were turn-based and happened on a square grid.

The games were collected at various times, the most recent being the Forgotten Realms Archives in 1997, which includes the five Pool of Radiance games and the two main Savage Frontier games, along with other Forgotten Realms-based games. Playing them on modern computers generally requires DOSBox or other emulation software.

Bag of Spilling: Justified in Curse of the Azure Bonds by the villains ambushing and stealing your equipment, and then in Secret of the Silver Blades, the villagers summon you, but forget to summon your equipment.

Copy Protection: not only required you to state a word on the codewheel, but also to translate in-game texts. It also involved looking entries in a journal that contains Red Herrings if you try reading it without playing the game.

Dragon Their Feet: If you kill Dracandros but didn't defeat the Dracolich, he will attack you soon after leaving the village.